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First of all, I fully agree with people here saying that the weakest part of computer system is interface between seat and keyboard/mouse (= user).
Also, I have to admit two things:
1. my windows box was cracked once, because of my stupidity to start exe attached in some e-mail. Thank God, it was 5 years ago, when I just bought my first PC.
2. I never used *nix. The reason is that I never find enough time to learn about it. And I don't want to use some OS I don't know how to secure.

when we look at thees two statements then you will see why would I prefer Win Box to use.
But that is personal. Someone else has more experience on *nix and know how to use most of it.

Back to the primary topic of this thread.
I think that overal of cracked/hacked/compromised *nix systems is much larger. Why? What is the most popular web server? I gues Apache on Linux. Can someone tell me how many web servers both win or linux never were attacked succesfully? I bet not much of them. Ofcourse, no one will admit that their server was cracked, until the cracker put his own html on attacked web page.

So, what realy matters in this whole thing is not who made OS. It is who use it, and how much the targeted box is known to the world.

Guess what, it is realy easy to make box safe, no matter what OS is on it. Unplug the telephone/network cable from it, and make restricted access to its keyboard/mouse.

huh, I started to talk to much, and everything is going to wide.. time to go to bed

i have built a windows 2000 server whigh got defaced about 4 times evan with all the updates, so i built a linux box whih the crackers could not dent it.
I am not saying linux is better just that i find it easier to lock down, As windows has a tendency to (HIDE) some of it's holes. Linux seems to be pretty (up front) with it,s security issues.

Originally posted here by whizkid2300 How is a *nix box better than a windows box?

A good percentage of windows boxes are home computers on dial up , a high percentage of *nix boxes are servers on big pipes. Would you rather 0wn grannys win98 on dial up with a 40 gig harddrive or a dual opteron with 3 gigs of RAM and 300gigs storage on a t3? easy choice isnt it.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
The international ban against torturing prisoners of war does not necessarily apply to suspects detained in America\'s war on terror, Attorney General John Ashcroft told a Senate oversight committee
-- true colors revealed, a brown shirt and jackboots

There are a couple of problems with this statement.... (reference to thread topic....)

1) A hacked box is not always easy to spot, particualry if the attacker was highly skilled and paranoid
about being discovered. Most attackers want to elevate/maintain access to the system, so they will
go to great lengths to make the system appear as if all is well. Unless they asked this question of expert security administrators the replies are suspect.

2) There might be more Windows&trade; boxes on the planet, but hacking has always been a predominately
UNIX-oriented activity. Simply put, it is far more useful to have 100 boxes running some Unix-variant under
your control than 100 Windows boxes. Most security/cracking tools and exploits are meant to be run from
some Unix-variant regardless of the end target; which, irrespective of OS preference makes r00ting Unix boxes
much more worthwhile.

3) Popular computer activities are inherently insecure. It really doesn't matter what OS you choose to run, or how tightly you lock down your network if you are going to bring in untrusted (i.e. mp3's, images, moveis, games, etc., etc.,) files onto your system.

4) Consider that many exploits are kept secret within close-knit black hat circles never making it to bugtrack and other popular places to annouce new security issues.

Linux is an outstanding OS, and I have full confidence that it will continue to get even better. To make claims that
suggest it is secure even in the hands of a novice or casual user is just untruthful and unrealistic at this point.